BAGUIO CITY, May 2 (PIA)- - Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) is continuously intensifying its awareness campaign against illegal recruiters and human trafficking even as illegal recruitment in the region slightly decreased for the first quarter of this year.

POEA Director Delfina Camarillo, in a kapihan forum last week, reported that they just went around some municipalities in Ifugao and in Mountain Province for the campaign.

According to Camarillo, though illegal recruitment cases went down- 26 cases this year compared to the 28 cases recorded in the first quarter of 2010- they still need to intensify their awareness campaign since there is an increasing number of victims of human and drug trafficking.

“There is an increasing figure on victims of human trafficking and Filipino drug couriers, which is always associated to illegal recruitment, which is why we have to awaken the awareness of our constituents about the risk of human and illegal drug trafficking,” Camarillo said.

In line with this, Camarillo also urged the public to be vigilant and help the government in its fight against illegal recruiters, and at the same time in the reduction, if not elimination of human trafficking and drug courier victims.

“If there will be people that would report incident or case of illegal recruitment, then we do immediate action to arrest the perpetrators as we also focus on the preventive aspect rather than remedial, in addressing such problem, ” Camarillo said.

Last April 7, the POEA made an entrapment operation and a citizen’s arrest of Merlinda Castro, a suspected large scale illegal recruiter. Castro is now detained at the Baguio City jail and faces a large-scale illegal recruitment case which is supported by affidavits from 10 complainants.

The government, through the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Philippine Drug Enforcement Agencies (PDEA) and the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), in coordination with other concerned government agencies, is also intensifying the campaign against drug couriers so as to avoid another case of a Filipino being jailed and sentenced to death in other countries as in the case of the three Filipinos who were recently executed in China due to illegal drug-trafficking cases. (JDP/LD-PIA CAR)